Galge Review – Idol Mahou Shoujo Chiruchiru ☆ Michiru

In the game industry, there are a handful of jokes which became so big, that eventually became reality! The Touhou Fighting game by Tasogare Frontier, the Fate/Strange Fake Novels by Narita Ryougo, and even some jokes that have gone too far and took themselves too seriously, like Dive Kick! Thankfully, Idol Mahou Shoujo Chiruchiru ☆ Michiru never tries to be “serious business”! It was originally just an April fool’s joke and it keeps being just that: A joke! But this isn’t a bad thing! Actually, this Visual Novel is quite awesome!

Story

Matsushima Michiru’s dream is to become an Pop-Idol just like Kazami Kazuki – who she admires so much. Unfortunately, she have neither the talent nor the charm required for for this, so she keeps doing small concerts on a pub.One fateful night, she made a wish upon a falling star to become a Top Idol. Sadly, that star ended up falling on poor Michiru, instantly killing her. Thankfully, that star was actually Nyanmel – a magical cat from the magic world of magical mahou! He was looking for someone fitting to become a magical girl! Someone with charm, innocence and unconditional love.Michiru had none of these, but since she was revived by magic, she needs to keep the magical stick with her all the time now, or else her soul would take a long vacation from her body. Therefore, Nyanmel had to make do with Michiru.Now, they need to collect the 7 sinful magic medals that have been scattered in the mortal realm and are causing panic all over Japan.However, Michiru is really incompetent when it comes to…ANYTHING! But, fear not! There’s another magical girl around! A really powerful and capable one! And her true identity is Kazami Kazuki! Tan tan taaaaaaaan!

Routes

This is a Kinect Novel! There’s no such things as “routes”, but this VN is divided into 13 chapters and 2 games, like it was an anime series with 2 season and 13 episodes. In fact, Front Wing is trying so hard to make this feel just like an anime, that they even have opening and ending sequences playing for every chapter, next episode scenes, summary of previous episodes and even those damn end cards after the ending sequence of every episode. It’s kinda amusing, but it becomes repetitive with no time!

Themes

If it isn’t obvious enough, this 2-parts Visual Novel is a huge parody on magical girl premise. I had a good time with this game! It was really funny for most of the time! It has been over 1 year since the last time a Visual Novel made me laugh!Most characters are from the Grisaia series, with just a few new ones and some alternative takes on others, like Nyanmel – who was originally Michiru’s non-magical pet, or Yuuji – Grisaia’s protagonist, who is now a spoiled brat. But Makina may be the weirdest case when it comes to “alternative takes”. Since Grisaia didn’t have too many male characters to begin with, Makina was miscast as Michiru’s greedy and abusive producer, even though no one ever points out that she is a loli.Kazuki is also a ridiculously funny character! She was already unfairly skilled at everything in Grisaia, but she became even more “OP” as an ultra popular idol and a magic girl who is already stronger than the final boss since the beginning. But her brother-complex was also amplified, which made her into a slave to her shouta otouto’s will. For instance, she only became an idol because her brother said she is cute enough to become one, and she immediately revealed her identity as a magic girl for him just because he said it would be “super cool” if she was the infamous magical girl on the TV.But in the end, Michiru is the main attraction. She is such a lovable loser who does the most absurd things to succeed, and even though she usually fails, she still manages to be charismatic thanks to her unpredictable reactions. After all, even though Michiru is always surpassed by Kazuki, she doesn’t really care, since she worship her as a Goddess, which creates many awkward and unexpected situations for the otherwise nonchalant Kazuki.Naturally, there are fair number of absurdities, like the fallen princess who can never go back to the heavens because the heavenly people follow the “3 seconds” rule. The game even goes as far as to troll the player by giving a fake cliffhanger at the end of a chapter, or to make a full episode that consists of a single 2 seconds scene of a cat farting. They even give some jabs at the Galge industry, with an episode where all the backgrounds are doodles made with crayon, because they were in short of money…It seems this 2-parts game didn’t manage to get too much attention, and even Grisaia fans don’t seen too care much for it. This is probably because this is an “all-ages” title. Yep! No boobs or pussies for ya! Just wacky and innocent comedy…Well, there IS a scene where Michiru pats Yuuji’s nuts in order to convince the boy to help her, which is kinda disturbing. Specially considering Yuuji is just a little kid in this version…NO! There’s no CG for this scene!

Graphics

Watanabe Akio (A.K.A. Poyoyon Rock) and Fumio are back as main artists to give a more genuine feel to this game and make it really look like part of the Grisaia series. Even Yamada Sekijin is back with his crappy SDs! Therefore, the art-style identical to the Grisaia series, although it got more colorful tones and innocent designs than the serious and tragic Grisaia games. Poyoyon’s style really fits the more comedic atmosphere of this game, even more than in the main Grisaia games, but Fumio doesn’t fall behind too much!It seems Yamada Sekijin will not accept defeat and he gave his all to make his crappy SDs even crappier than before! And GOD! How crappy they are!

Voices

Tomonaga Akane (Kazuki), Tanaka Riyouko (Yumiko), Tamiyasu Tomoe (Makina), and many other Galge veterans are back to give great performances, but at the end of the day, the one who shines the most is Mizuhashi Kaori as Michiru! There’s quite a lot of jokes that would fall flat if it wasn’t for her spectacular voice-acting! It’s not for nothing she is one of the main reasons why the Disgaea series became so popular!

Music

The soundtrack is surprisingly good! Full of energetic and catchy BGMs made mostly with synthesizers, which fits like a glove with the wacky atmosphere. There’s even some songs with female vocals that just go “la-la-la-la” most of the time, while sometimes, it’s just some gibberish. This does sound horrible, but musics like that adds to the weird and silly style all the more!

Conclusion

It’s a shame that something as small as the lack of H was enough to drive away most of fans. It’s honestly one of the most fun Visual Novels I’ve played for PC! But maybe I’m biased to say that, since I just love Michiru!